Packing-case.



H. L. BRADLEY.

- PAUKING CASE.

APPLICATION IILBD rma, 1910.

996,967; Patented July 4,1911.

MINI/EH70)? 29 Afro/My nuirn STATE PATENT FFICE.

HENRY L. BRADLEY, OF NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT.

PACKING-CASE.

T 0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY L. BRADLEY, a citizen of the United States,residing at New Haven, county of New Haven, State of Connecticut, haveinvented an Improvement in Packing-Cases, of which the following is aspecification.

Ihis invention has for its object to produce an inexpensive, strong anddurable packing case or box which may be made of light, thin boards,veneers or fiber or compound boards, of any size or shape withinreasonable limits and which shall be secured together by flexible staysof paper, textile material or metal and without the use of frames orcleats. In other words, I produce a packing case which While cheaper tomake and lighter than any heretofore produced, shall be strong anddurable, may be used over and over again, may be set up very quickly,Without machinery and at a minimum cost of labor, thus enabling shippersto either buy the cases in knock-down form or to make the members andset them up when required.

It is of course well understood that where the members of packing casesare secured together by nails or prongs, the members must be made ofmaterial thick enough to receive and hold the nails and in large-sizedcases cleats or frames must be used to strengthen the case, and evenwhen made of relatively heavy material and strengthened with frames andcleats there is danger of the cases bursting if the cases are handledroughly or are thrown upon an edge or corner. My present inventionenables me to overcome these objections and to produce a case consistingof members made from material too thin to receive and hold nails, whichshall beheld together by flexible stays in such a manner as to resistcompression, general rough handling and striking upon the edges andcorners, which shall be effectually sealed by the mode of securing themembers together and which may be used many times, which is not possiblewhere the members of light cases are secured together by nails orprongs.

With these and other objects in view I have devised the novel naillesspacking case or box which I will now describe, referring to theaccompanying drawing forming a part of this specification and usingreference characters to indicate the several parts.

Figure 1 is a perspective of my novel Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed February 3, 1910.

Patented July 4, 1911. Serial No. 541,882.

packing case illustrating the several forms of stays used; Figs. 2, 3, 4and 10 are sectlonal views on an enlarged scale, illustratmgrespectively four forms of stays; Figs. 5, 6 and 7 are perspectivesillustrating different forms of stays as in use but detached; Fig. 8 isa plan view of a strip with cuts in pairs from opposite edges toseparate into stays; and Fig. 9 is a perspective illustrating theapplication of stays to the top and end of a packing case.

20 denotes the top, 21 the bottom, 22 the sides, 28 the ends and 24- apartition. All of these members may be made of light thin boards,veneers or fiber or compound boards.

My novel stays are simply strips of paper or textile material secured tothe members by any suitable paste, glue or cement. In heavy cases,metallic strips may be used if either tacks, rivets or prongs. Ipreferably use stays made from tough, strong paper and apply them insuch a manner, as will presently be explained, that the tendency to peelor strip oif is wholly overcome and the strength of the case or box isonly limited by the strength of the stays used which reinforce andstrengthen each other and make breakage practically impossible even whenthe cases are subjected to very rough handling.

My novel stays may be applied singly or in continuous strips extendingpartly or wholly the length of the members. Although each stay is simplya strip of paper or textile material, owing to the different ways inwhich they are shaped in application I shall describe them forconvenience as four different stays. The forms of stays used areindicated respectively by 25, 26, 27 and 28. One end of stay 25 issecured to the inner side of a member, then passes outward over the edgeof said member and between two members being secured to both, then overthe edge of the contiguous member and is secured upon the outer side ofthe contiguous member, as is clearly shown in Fig. 2. Stay 26 has oneend secured to the inner side of a member, then passes-over the edge ofthe contiguous member and between the members being secured to both, andis secured to the outer side of the contiguous member, as clearly shownin Fig. 3. Stay 27 is simply an outside or binding stay. It may beplaced over either of the other stays or beside them, as preferred.l/Vhen used in come by the contiguous stays.

1 tain of these strains the tendency is for the the slot and is attachedto the outer side of the contiguous member opposite to the side of thepartition to which it is attached, the two stays crossing each otherside by side, as clearly shown in Fig. 10, which see in connection withFig. 1.

In assembling a case or box, the ends of stays that are to be upon theinner sides of the members are preferably attached in placebeforesetting up or assembling. In assembling, the free ends of the attachedstays are brought around the edges of the members to which they areattached and eitherpassed over the edge of the contiguous member andattached to the outer side thereof, as in Fig. 2, or are turned in theopposite direction and attached to the outer side of the contiguousmember as in Fig. 3, the first form being designated as stay 25 and thesecond form as stay 26. Any mode of assembling may be adopted as mostconvenient for the use to which the case is to be applied. The sides maybe attached to the bottom and top and then the ends put in or the sides,bottom and ends and the par tition, if used, may be attached in placeand then the top attached to the other members. If preferred, in heavycases, heavier ends may be used and they may be nailed in place,although this is ordinarily not neces sary as cases made up of light,thin bottoms, tops, sides, ends and partitions, if used, and securedtogether by flexible stays only, which may be made of strong toughpaper, are found to admirably meet the re quirements of use. Stays 25and 26 are interspersed in such a manner that wherever there would be atendency to strip or peel off when the case was exposed to a certainform of strain, that tendency would be over- Both of these forms ofstays are moreover reinforced and supported by stays 27 placed over themor contiguous to them, as preferred. Among the severe strains to whichpacking cases are subjected are turning them on their corners, turningthem end over end and projecting them forward so that they strike on theedges and corners. then subjected to, cerforward end of the box to bedetached from the contiguous members These strains, however, are allprovided for and overcome bythe comb nation of stays 25, 26 and 27described above, which are so arranged that no matter in what directionthe strain may be it will be met and overcome by stays so placed thatthere will be a direct pull upon the stays without danger of theirpeeling or stripping oli. The only way, therefore, that a member of thebox or case can become detached or broken away is by the application ofsuflicient force to break the stays longitudinally, which is practicallyimpossible if stays of strong, tough paper or textile material or metalare applied in suflicient numbers to correspond with the size of thecase and the use to which it is to be subjected.

Another important function of my novel stays is to line up the membersof the box or case in assembling. These members being made of thismaterial are liable to warp especially if light boards or veneers areused. Suppose the members to be seriously warped. In attaching stays 25(see Fig. 2) it will be seen that the members will be brought intoperfect alinement if the stays are properly applied and will be securelyheld there by the stays. The members when secured in place by theapplication of stays 25 and 26 will be additionally secured by stays 27which enable the case to withstand all ordinary strains of compression.It will be noted that when a case is assembled and the members securedin place by stays it will be effectually sealed as it cannot be openedwithout breaking the stays.

In Fig. 8 I have shown a continuous strip of material for stays which isindicated by 30 and is provided with cuts 31 extending inward in pairsfrom the opposite edges alternately, from which stays of either forms25, 26 or 27 may be formed in use as required upon either sides, ends,tops or bottoms of cases to meet the requirements of use. 7

Having thus described my invention I claim:

1. An improvement in packing cases comprising a plurality of box membersarranged at right angles, the edge of one member being flush with theouter face of the other member to form a square corner, and a continuousflexible strip for uniting said box member at said corner, said stripbeing slit transversely to form stay members having strips attached tothe inner face of the first box member and passing thence over the edgeof the second box member and finally attached to the outer face of thesecond member, said flexible strip being also slit transversely to formstay members having strips attached to the outer face of the first boxmember and parallel with the strips on the inner face of said first boxmember, the last mentioned strips being extended over the edge of thefirst box member and finally secured to the outer face of the second boxmember adjacent the first strip, the strips of said stay members beingplaced along the meeting edges of said box members, said flexible stripbeing also provided with means for resisting stresses tending todecrease the angle of said box members with relation to each other,whereby said flexible strip forms the sole support for both faces ofeach box member along said corner.

2. An improvement in packing cases comprising a plurality of box membersarranged at rightangles, the edge of one member being flush with theouter face of the other member to form a square corner, and a continuous flexible strip for uniting said box member at said corner, saidstrip being slit transversely to form stay members having stripsattached to the inner face of the second box member and passing fromthence over the edge of said member, from thence over the adjacent edgeof the first box member and finally attached to the outer face of saidfirst member, said flexible strip being also slit transversely to formstay members having strips secured to the outer face of the second boxmember and parallel with the strips on the inner face of said secondmember, the last mentioned strip being passed over the edge of the firstbox member and finally secured to the outer face thereof adjacent thefirst strip, the strips of said stay members being placed along themeeting edges of said box members, said flexible strip being alsoprovided with means for resisting stresses tending to increase the angleof said box members with relation to each other, whereby said flexiblestrip forms the sole support for both faces of each box member alongsaid corner.

3. An improvement in packing cases comprising a plurality of box membersarranged at right angles, the edge of one member being flush with theouter face of the other member to form a square corner, and a continuousflexible strip for uniting said box member at said corner, said stripbeing slit transversely to form stay members having strips attached tothe inner face of the first box member and passing thence over the edgeof the second box member and finally attached to the outer face of thesecond member, said flexible strip being also slit transversely to formstay members having strips attached to the outer face of the first boxmember and parallel with the strips on the inner face of said first boxmember, the last mentioned strips being extended over the edge of thefirst box member and thence inward over the edge of the second boxmember and finally secured to the inner face of said second box member,the strips of said stay members being placed along the meeting edges ofsaid box members, said flexible strip being also provided with means forresisting stresses tending to increase the angle of said box mem berswith relation to each other, whereby said flexible strip forms the solesupport for both faces of the second box member along said corner.

4. An improvement in packing cases comprising a plurality of box membersarranged at right angles, the edge of one member being flush with theouter face of the other member to form a square corner, and a continuousflexible strip for uniting said box member at said corner, said flexiblestrip being slit transversely to form stay members having stripsattached to the inner face of the first box member and passing thenceover the edge of the second box member and finally attached to the outerface of the second member, said flexible strip being also slittransversely to form stay members having strips attached to the outerface of the first box member and parallel with the strips on the innerface of said first box member, the last mentioned strips being extendedover the edge of the first box member and thence inward over the edge ofthe second box member and finally secured to the inner face of saidsecond box member, said flexible strip being also slit transversely toform stay members having strips secured to the outer faces of both boxmembers parallel with the other strips, the strips of said stay membersbeing placed along the meeting edges of said box members and cooperatingto form the sole support for both faces of each box member along thesaid corner.

In testimony whereof I aflix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

HENRY L. BRADLEY.

Witnesses:

A. M. WOOSTER, S. W. ATHnR'roN.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.

